How do you respond to tell me about a time you have received a piece of feedback?

Hi,

The goal of this type of question is to assess your coachability. A strong approach is to use feedback you’ve already received and frame it as a story of growth—this shows self-awareness and demonstrates how you’ve developed key consulting skills through experience. Using the STAR method (Situation/Task, Action, Result) can help you structure a clear and compelling answer.

For example:

• Situation/Task: Early in my internship, I needed inputs from the legal team within a week but didn’t account for their workload, which delayed our timeline. The feedback I received was to always check for dependencies when planning.

• Action: On my next project, I created a stakeholder and dependency map, consulted with assistants to validate timelines, and proactively followed up to keep requests on track.

• Result: This strengthened my time management and stakeholder coordination, and similar delays were avoided going forward.

What matters most is showing introspection and real progress—the specific feedback is less important than how you learned and improved from it. Don't mention things like "I am still working on it, it got a little better but I still struggle".

Hope this helps. Good luck with your recruiting!

Best,
Kateryna

I like this question because it’s broader than it first appears. I personally like to think of feedback as the evolution of a plant – from seed to blossom:

Seed phase
Start by clearly describing the feedback you received and how you listened to it with openness and curiosity. This is where you demonstrate coachability – treating feedback as a gift and a signal worth paying attention to, rather than something to defend against.

Growth phase
Next, explain what you realised through reflection. Often, feedback doesn’t point to a universal weakness but to a specific pattern or context. For example, you might realise that you tend to take on new work particularly with people you have strong relationships with, rather than accepting every request indiscriminately. Showing this level of nuance demonstrates self-awareness and maturity.

Blossom phase
Finally, describe the concrete actions you took as a result and the impact they had. This could be a change in how you assess capacity, align with stakeholders, or communicate commitments. Ending with measurable improvement or stronger outcomes shows that the feedback led to real growth – not just insight.

While the choice of the feedback story you share with an interviewer is important, it’s often the way you frame and reflect on it that makes the real difference.

Hi there,

This is a very common concern. Interviewers aren’t looking for a lack of weaknesses, they’re looking for self-awareness and coachability. You don’t need to avoid consulting-related feedback, you just need to frame it well.

The safest approach is to pick feedback where a strength was slightly miscalibrated, then show what you changed. Your example about overcommitting due to enthusiasm works well if you emphasize learning to assess capacity, flag trade-offs, and communicate constraints. That signals maturity, not weakness. The stakeholder timing example is also strong if framed around learning to align early on constraints and pressure-test assumptions. Coalition-building feedback works especially well for senior roles as it shows growth in influence and stakeholder management.

Avoid feedback that suggests core gaps in problem solving or ownership. Focus on style, prioritization, or stakeholder management, and clearly explain how the feedback changed your behavior.

Best,
Evelina

Everybody has weaknesses / areas of development. 

Those interviewing you know that. And they can also easily sniff a 'fake' weakness that you're communicating just for the sake of the interview. 

So instead of playing defence, I'd rather encourage you to think of the one feedback area that you addressed the best. i.e., one thing on which you were told to improve and you did do that and now you can walk us through that example. 

Honesty goes very very far. 

Best,
Cristian

This is a perfectly strategic question, and you are right to worry about exposing fundamental flaws. The truth is, the interviewer knows you are not a perfect consultant yet; they are testing your self-awareness and professional maturity. The goal is strategic exposure—you want to choose a weakness that demonstrates a highly coachable mind and a sophisticated, second-order learning.

The key is selecting feedback that relates to a process gap, not a fundamental trait. You absolutely should lean into one of the consulting-adjacent examples, but you must frame it correctly. Your example about underestimating the legal team’s commitments is the strongest choice. It allows you to explain that your error wasn't a lack of drive or intelligence, but a failure to fully probe external organizational constraints before setting an internal expectation.

When you deliver this using the STAR method, spend minimal time on the initial mistake (Situation, Task, Action) and maximum time on the learning (Result and, crucially, Future Application). Your narrative should be: "I learned that in complex cross-functional work, efficiency requires building pre-emptive stakeholder maps that explicitly assess external bandwidth and organizational priorities, rather than relying solely on internal project timelines." This pivots the initial "weakness" into a demonstrated mastery of complex stakeholder management—a huge asset in consulting.

All the best!

hey there :)

This is actually a good problem to have. Use feedback that shows a strength taken slightly too far, like over committing or moving too fast, and clearly explain what you changed in your behavior and the positive impact afterwards. Interviewers care much more about reflection and learning than about the feedback itself, so keep it honest, contained and growth focused. Happy to help you polish a concrete story if you want.

best,
Alessa :)

Hi there,

I don't think you need to avoid sharing real consulting-related feedback because you are working in consulting, so it is expected. What you should do is pick one feedback that you worked on, and show significant progress, and admit that it's still something you're working on and how.

Hi,

Remember that the goal of this question is not to assess your weaknesses, but to see how you react to feedback, so ANY feedback received is good to answer the question.

2 common errors are:

• Making it sound as if it was not your fault (another colleague, the circumstances, etc.): this would show that you are not interesting on improving, but on "blaming"
• Ending your answer with the feedback and the fact that you accepted it (or that it did not happen again). the interviewer wants to see what was your reaction: what immediate corrective action did you take, what did you do to ensure that did not happen again, how did you follow up and evaluated if you were improving there, etc.

So bottom line, any situation is good as long as you are able to develop a sound story around.

I hope this helps